1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a character recognizing and translating system which is suitable for use as a portable translating machine or the like, and more particularly to a character recognizing and translating system for taking, as camera image data, characters which are written on sightseeing guide boards, building name plates, signboards, sightseeing guide pamphlets, menus of restaurants, etc. to which travelers often refer in overseas travel places, for example so as to recognize the characters. The character recognizing and translating system is not restricted to any particular shape or size of character, nor to any particular languages, and it is suitable for use in recognizing and translating various characters written in various languages which are taken in or imaged as camera image data. Furthermore, the present invention relates to a voice recognizing and translating system which is suitable for use as a portable translating machine, and more particularly as a voice recognizing and translating system for picking up (taking) or recording various types of voices or other aural information which are announced in an air port lobby, a train station, in an airplane, a vehicle, at a sightseeing location, etc., as well as surrounding conversational speech, and voices and announcements at lectures, etc., so as to recognize and translate the so taken-in or recorded voices.
2. Description of Related Art
Recently, a portable liquid crystal digital camera has been developed for enabling a user to view just-photographed still image information at the place where the photographs were taken, record the still image information in a recording medium, display the image information on a large-scale screen monitor, print the image information with a printer, etc.
Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. Hei-3-87976 discloses a character recognizing and translating machine for an electronic still camera, which is connected to an electronic still camera such as the above-described type of liquid crystal digital camera or the like, to recognize character information in recorded images and further to translate the recognized result. This machine is designed so as to receive character information contained in object images from the electronic still camera and recognize and translate characters contained in the character information. More specifically, according to the character recognizing and translating machine, video signals from the electronic still camera are converted to signals which are suitable for character recognition and translation processing, and are then subjected to a series of general information processing steps such as character area extraction processing based on an edge extraction method, background deletion processing, character arrangement slant correction processing, character recognition processing based on a pattern matching method, machine translation processing, etc.
However, according to the conventional character recognizing and translating device as described above, it has been very difficult to recognize and translate characters written on sightseeing guide boards, building name plates, restaurant menus, sightseeing guide pamphlets, etc. to which travelers often refer in overseas travel places. This is because it frequently occurs that characters cannot be accurately recognized by merely applying a pattern matching method using only a character reference pattern to calligraphic characters which are written in various writing styles in overseas places.
On the other hand, following the recent rapid increase in the number of overseas travelers, portable translating machines having fixed forms of conversion patterns with voice recognition have been developed to overcome the difficulties of communication among people of various nationality (the so-called language barrier). These portable translating machines utilize a reproduction system in which sentences used in various types of conversations are registered as voice data in advance and a desired sentence is selected in accordance with a given situation. According to this reproduction system, a person with which a user is conversing (hereinafter referred to as a "person in conversation") is allowed to one-sidedly hear, in his native language, a question or request which the user wishes to make. However, the speech of the person cannot be translated by this machine. Therefore, there has been proposed another device for recognizing a user's voice in which the spoken words are input through a microphone, the voice is translated into a predetermined language and is then outputted, as disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Application No. Hei-5-35776.
According to this device, voice data which is input through the microphone is converted to a digital signal and divided to be analyzed, and then the result of analysis is compared with a standard voice pattern stored in a voice recognition dictionary to perform voice recognition. Furthermore, according to this device, translated words corresponding to a recognized voice are read in from a memory card for translated word data, converted to a signals and then output to a speaker. The memory card for translated word data comprises a ROM card or the like, and has voice data stored therein. By exchanging the memory card with one for another language, voice translation can be achieved in plural languages. The voice recognition dictionary comprises a RAM or the like, and has standard voice patterns corresponding to the user's particular pronunciation prerecorded therein.
In the above-described portable voice translating machine disclosed in the above publication, the voice of the user can be recognized. However, its function is limited to that of the portable translating machine using fixed conversation patterns with voices as described above. That is, it allows a person in conversion to one-sidedly hear a user's question or request in the person's native language. However, it cannot recognize and translate the natural conversation voice of an unspecified person, and thus the user cannot understand his speech. When the user is in conversation with a person who speaks a language which the user cannot speak, it is more important to translate the speech of the person in conversation than the speech of the user.
Furthermore, during overseas travel, a traveler has problems in that he cannot understand voice announcements which are made in an air-port lobby, a train station, in an airplane, a vehicle, at a sightseeing location, etc., nor can he understand normal surrounding conversational speech, voices and announcements at lectures, etc. Particularly for the voice recognition of voice announcements in an air-port lobby, a train station, in an-air plane, a vehicle, at a sightseeing location, etc., reduction in recognition efficiency of voice recognition when there is background noise is a critical problem.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a character recognizing and translating system which is not restricted by the shape or size of characters nor by any difference in language, and which can recognize and translate various characters written in various languages which are sensed as camera image data. Furthermore, another object of the present invention is to provide a voice recognizing and translating system for reliably recognizing and translating various types of continuous voices or announcements when there is background noise such as in an air-port lobby, a train station, in an air-plane, in a vehicle, at a sightseeing location, etc.